OLLIE'S NOODLE SHOP--NEW YORK, NEW YORK

OLLIE'S NOODLE SHOP & GRILLE

1991 BROADWAY

NEW YORK, NY

212 595-8181


Don’t expect a warm, fuzzy welcome. Ollie’s Noodle Shop & Grille is a business, and is run with extraordinary coldness. We almost have to trot after the hostess to get our table, and if we had been sent upstairs, we’d be passed off from hostess to hostess until we meet the one who seats us. It’s always astounding. Most of the staff is, at best, inadequate in English, so even a question about the location of the ladies’ room is answered with a crisply snapped “Downstairs!” On the other hand, they’ll make chopsticks into “beginner chopsticks” and teach you how to use them! This is a place, reasonably priced in a pricy city, that’s really worth the effort.

The food at Ollie’s is worth any rudeness or inconvenience you might suffer. Once you sit down and you order from the several hundred items on the menu, your selections are brought promptly and efficiently, yet you never feel rushed. Rob and I always linger, discuss the choices we’ve made, and relax. Food is plentiful, very good, and choices are often not what we’d get from our local Chinese restaurants. It is almost inconceivable not to see tables of Asians enjoying their meals, though I’ve read that Ollie’s is a distinctly Americanized version of Chinese food. Works for me.

Nevertheless, we like Ollie’s and always have a tough time choosing from the menu. This evening, Rob and I begin with two appetizers: Steamed Mixed Dumplings and Fried Meat Dumplings. The eight mixed dumplings are delicious—shrimp ones, vegetable ones, and seafood. We dip in the sauce, and they are lovely. The six Fried Meat Dumplings are elongated rolls of meat in a nice, crisp wrapping. Actually, it reminds me of a fried meat “whatever” you find in almost any culture.

I get a bowl of Cantonese Wonton Soup, and it is different from what I order at home. There are a lot of green vegetables in the soup, bean sprouts, and light wontons in a very light but tasty broth. Rob has the Hot and Sour Soup, and he too, claims it is different but very good and tangy.

Then we share something that does not even appear on the menu at home. It is Pan-Fried Noodle w. Vegetables and Roast Pork. It arrives in a circular glass pie plate, the noodles crispy yet quite willing to soak up the sauce. The noodles are topped with an array of roast pork, bok choy, succulent mushrooms and other vegetables, and it is easily enough for two.

Rob and l leave the restaurant and walk down to Lincoln Center. But it is a warm night, and we top off the meal with vanilla ice cream cones from Mr. Softee. What can be better?